Passage of the act followed quickly on the heels of a moratorium on development in New Jersey's wetlands declared by Governor Thomas Kean.
In late 2018, a coalition of environmental groups demanded that Governor Phil Murphy declare a moratorium on fossil fuel infrastructure, citing the incompatibility of future increases in New Jersey greenhouse gas emissions with the Global Warming Response Act of 2007.
But in the late 1960s and early 1970s, researchers found that marshes and swamps "were worth billions annually in wildlife production, groundwater recharge, and for flood, pollution, and erosion control."
Early in his first term (1983), he tried to implement a strong environmental regulation package, but opposition (primarily from builders) objected to any increase the bureaucracy of the EPA's process.
[6] In the Spring of 1987, the Environmental Protection Agency asked the Conservation Foundation (later to become the World Wildlife Fund) to convene a national forum on wetlands issues.
The order directed Commissioner Richard Dewling of the Department of Environmental Protection to deny all permits for development in wetlands.
This was worse for developers than the proposed bill, so on July 1, 1987, the New Jersey legislature finally passed the Freshwater Wetlands Protection Act.